TREES IN PAINTING 215 



These few instances suffice to show that the 

 mediaeval point of view, as represented in the 

 work even of Giotto and his school, was super- 

 seded by the Florentine painters of the fif- 

 teenth century. 



The fifteenth - century Venetian painter, 

 Giovanni Bellini, in his picture ''The Death of 

 St. Peter Martyr," in our National Gallery, 

 painted probably early in the sixteenth century, 

 is still partly mediaeval in his tree-painting. 

 The trees tower above the figures, and there 

 is a sense of mass ; but it is obtained by the 

 laborious painting of a great number of indi- 

 vidual leaves. But the rendering of landscape, 

 and of atmospheric quality, in this picture, as 

 again in the same painter's ''Christ's Agony 

 in the Garden," also in our National Gallery, 

 is far in advance of contemporary Florentine 

 work. Of the latter picture, Mr. Cosmo Monk- 

 house says: "We see for the first time an 

 attempt to render a particular effect of light, 

 the first twilight picture with clouds rosy with 

 lingering gleams of sunset, and light shining 

 from the sky on hill and town — the first in 

 which a head is seen in shadow against a 

 brilliant sky". Since Bellini's time how often 



